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is already attractive, if, in the case of its sister creations, Sūy., Utt, and Dasav. one has to deal with more or less cleverly and transparently composed compilations,15 in the case of the Bambhacerāim, however, which could be compared most preferably, with considerably disturbed contexts and layers. That our text goes back to one single author, cannot be doubted; the parallelism in the structure of the individual chapters proves this no less than the throughout uniform style and the numerous self-quotations. The stanzas in a metre other than the sloka may, for a great part, come from elsewhere, one or the other among them is likewise repeated by way of quotation. Yet the author could not manage without greater borrowings either. Such a one is No. 25, especially since its beginning tae nam, according to the usage of the canon, continues a description, but does not start one. Section 20, void of Rşi and motto, likewise has a form frequent in the canon, and its starting-point, the 5 ukkala, is actually found in Tbāņa 343a. Some prose which remainds us of known passages may be a more or less conscious reminiscence. These foreign feath. ers however, are covered by the plumage of its own with which our work adorns itself. That is the considered, but not rigidly kept up form and the figurative expression. As considered form is also to be counted the shaping of the motto, so far as it stands in prose; a lapidary mode of speech, which must have been chosen intentionally, in order to characterize the solitary knowers not called upon to be teachers. Disciples of Vāgalaciri, Mamkhaliputta, Metejja Bhayāli, Soriyayaņa, Varattaya, to mention only the obscurest of our Rşis, would indeed have stood perplexed before these splinters from the thought-workshop of the master. With us it goes similarly. If lucidity is sinned against here by terseness, the verses, on the other hand, nearly suffer from a surfeit of comparisons. Yet they are in most cases to the point, and if one remembers the renown enjoyed by the after all harmless allegory of the bees, Dasav. 1, the question arises why the Isibbasiyžim, which are so much richer in this respect, have fallen into nearly complete oblivion.
We read some strange things in the Isibhāsiyaim. Right in the 1st section (1, 7.8) the fourth and fifth vows are contracted into one, as though we were still concerned with the doctrine of Parsva, which did not know as yet of their separation, but which, on the other hand, expressed itself differently. Perhaps Pārsva stood indeed close to the author, and this would also explain the copiousness in the dictum of this "Rsi" (31).
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15. Suy. proceeds according to the size of the chapter. utt., apparently without any
plan, except that some legendary sections are standing together, and the dogmatic ones towards the end. Dasav. alternates from 4 onwards, between general and special representations (Author, Dasaveyāliya Sutta, transl, Ahmebabad 1932, p. VI).
